BAUER

A quick & easy-to-learn card drafting game

Summary

The objective of this project was to develop a game with minimal components that my brother, our friend, and I could produce within a year.

We aimed for a game with simple rules and high replay value, which ultimately led us to design Bauer - a quick card drafting game.

Project breakdown

Developed in 6 months
Produced through a kickstarter held in December 2023
Art by John Bauer
Print-and-play version on itch.io
Visit us on Board-game-geek
Pre-order a copy here

Lets go backwards

Watching it played

When designing a game, I strive to get in a sense of discovery to the gameplay. So, when Robin, Tobias, and I collaborated on Bauer, we consistently experimented with different strategies to see which ones were both effective and fun. It's crucial in game development to identify what aspects are fun and ensure that they lead to victory. After all, players enjoy winning, but if achieving victory is having a boring time, they're unlikely to return to the game.

I believe Bauer excels in its replayability. By keeping gameplay short and exciting, we motivate our players to engage in multiple rounds.

During our debut at our first game convention with Bauer, we witnessed firsthand as players searched for these strategies. We even hosted a Bauer tournament, where we had the opportunity to see Bauer played at a competitive level.

Kickstarter

To bring Bauer to life, we needed funds for production. Thus, we launched a Kickstarter campaign spanning over three weeks in November/December 2023.

Our marketing strategy focused heavily on engagement on platforms like Reddit and Facebook. We found that rather than self promotion it proved more efficient to approached potential backers with engaging questions such as "What's the most important feature to have in a draft game?" or "What's your opinion on using public domain art for your game?" The latter question sparked lively discussions, particularly because of the ongoing conversations about AI-generated art in board games. Our approach resonated well with the community, and we received positive feedback.

Additionally I also tried to spark interest with some You tube videos. Although they weren't as successful in gaining backers, they were at least fun to make.

The cards

Information placement

This is always an important topic when designing a card game. We want our players to be able to see all the relevant information they need when holding the cards in their hand and allow them to limit the table space if needed by stacking them on top of each other.

Hierarchy
It was important for us to keep the cards clean and really highlight the art-work.
This was achieved by keeping the rules easy to grasp allowing us to design the cards with symbols instead of rule text. Only exception being the character cards as seen bellow.

Adding in our own touches

Robin and Tobias dedicated considerable time to ensuring that all graphic elements, such as symbols, frames, and fonts, complemented Bauer's style while preserving its core essence.

Additionally, Robin made a concerted effort to remain faithful to the characters found in old storybooks, ensuring consistency with their original names if they were in the public domain.

Theme

We designed Bauer with a mechanics first approach.
During development we went through a lot of different styles and themes before we landed on the idea to make the game with John Bauer art.

So, who was John Bauer?

John Bauer was a Swedish painter active in the early 20th century. He is known for his illustrations of enchanting forests inhabited by trolls, fairy princesses and other fantastical beings. Most of his illustrations was made to accompany stories in the book series "Among Tomtar and Trolls". And for over 100 years the wonderful illustrations by John Bauer has been introduced through these stories to Swedish children. His work has been a source of inspiration for fantasy illustrators and folklore enthusiast for a long time and his legacy can be felt in everything from classic Disney movies to The lord of the rings.

Develpoing

Everything began with a few days of exploration and game creation. At this stage, our only clear idea was to develop a game consisting of approximately 50 cards that could be played quickly. After discussing various games in the genre, we decided to incorporate a draft mechanic as our core gameplay loop, but with a unique twist.

Typically, in a draft, players see multiple cards, choose one, and pass the remaining cards to the next player, continuing until the last card is picked. However, we identified some issues with this approach and opted for a different method.

We felt that playing a game with the most complicated decision being the first one, didn't align with the level of accessibility we wanted. Instead of presenting many cards initially and fewer later, we settled on a fixed number of three cards for every pick.

This ensured a fast-paced game while still providing players with a meaningful decision each turn, without overwhelming them with choices.

Additionally, we introduced an element of luck into the draft by giving players a new card added to their hand, separate from the two they received from other players. This element of uncertainty meant that even if players anticipated which cards might have been taken by their opponents, there was still the possibility of receiving a completely unknown card.

After establishing the gameplay mechanics of our game, we began discussing potential themes and settled on the concept of an amusement park run by classic villains.

Given that both Robin and Tobias are comic book artists, this theme resonated with us as it provided a fun and creative opportunity for artwork.

However, as the game continued to evolve over the next month, we made several small changes. Some card types were removed, and the structure of the cards underwent modifications. These adjustments resulted in the production time extending beyond our initial expectations.

Additionally, we realized that the amount of artwork required was more significant than anticipated, making the idea of completing the project from start to finish within six months seem unrealistic.

Despite these challenges, the core gameplay remained solid throughout the development process.

How to play

Lessons learned

Making games is expensive. We choose to make our first published game as small as possible but I was still shocked at the costs of printing, shipping etc.
Writing rules on cards are hard. You don't want the card to be filled with to many words but still understandable. Its a tricky puzzle to solve sometimes.
Understanding when to fight for your ideas and when to let it go, otherwise your objections wont bring any value.